Joey McGuire on Notre Dame: 'Be in a Conference, And You're in the Playoffs'

Should Notre Dame have been in the College Football Playoff instead of Miami or Alabama? That's asking the wrong kind of question, according to Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire. The issues with CFP selection, and the controversies that arise from them, are more structural than that based on his response on Monday to a question about said controversies.

"It's really tough, because you hate to eliminate anybody, but I do think that when you have a criteria of where you're going to select a team, everybody should be in that same criteria. So, and I don't wanna make Notre Dame mad, but be in a conference and you're in the playoffs. If they're in the ACC they're in the playoffs."

This is not the first time that McGuire has brought up Notre Dame's lack of a conference in recent weeks. After Texas Tech defeated BYU 29-7 on Nov. 8, McGuire, in the postgame press conference, said that, "I have so much respect for BYU. I do. I was really excited whenever they joined the Big 12 because I think that they carry a lot of weight and a lot of respect. I think that I have a lot of respect for them, entering a conference and not playing an independent schedule like other people. Y’all already know who that is."

He probably was not referring to the University of Connecticut.

Notre Dame's athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, claimed that the relationship between the Fighting Irish and the Atlantic Coast Conference – where their non-football athletic programs are members, and where the football team has a scheduling arrangement that grants them an average of five games per year against ACC teams – was "permanently damaged" by what he and the program perceived as attacks on Notre Dame, in favor of full conference member and eventual CFP